Did you get this PS5 game for free in October 2025? Sony just took it away from you and there’s a good reason why. We’ll explain it to you.
Each month, subscribers to PS Plus can be entitled to several free PS5 & PS4 games, regardless of their formula. For the month of December 2025, moreover, no less than five games were offered to celebrate the end of the year as it should be. Usually these licenses are retained indefinitely by players as long as they are signed up for PS Plus, the same goes for free games in general no matter how they are offered. But today, exceptionally, Sony is backtracking and withdrawing a PS5 game recovered for free several months ago. But before you get upset, know that there is a very good reason for this.
A not really free PS5 game removed by Sony
In October 2025, three games were offered: Alan Wake 2, Cocoon et Goat Simulator 3. Nothing unusual so far, except for a few lucky people who were able to grab an additional free PS5 game because of a bug, Shadow Tactics. The tactical infiltration game was free on the PS Store for a while, but unfortunately this was not wanted at all. The bug quickly made the rounds on social networks and spread like wildfire until quickly reaching PlayStation’s ears, of course.
Despite everything, thousands of smart people rushed into the breach and downloaded the game on PS5. Some may have subsequently received an email from PlayStation support to inform them that a refund request had indeed been taken into account. A message misunderstood until now, but which nonetheless initiated what is happening today: the removal of the Shadow Tactics license.
Yes, if you also took advantage of the bug to grab a free PS5 game that wasn’t one, you should notice that the Shadow Tactics license has disappeared from your collection. Nothing alarming therefore, insofar as Sony is simply correcting a problem that it had not been able to resolve before. And even if it’s not necessarily very nice to see a game disappear like this, we must not forget that it was a bug. There was no need to cheat. Shadow Tactics was unfortunately not intended to be a free PS5 game, but rest assured, it is regularly on promotion and you can easily find it for less than ten euros.
Soclimb: PlayStation Lifestyle
